Acclaimed filmmaker and artist Mania Akbari was forced to leave Iran before she could complete her most recent film, leaving us with only this electrifying fragment. The film’s title delineates the trajectory of Akbari’s flight while the couple in the film itself find themselves stranded in their country home, a stunning architectural wonder that becomes a cauldron of pent-up recriminations and desire—the frank depiction and intensity of which instigated Akbari’s need to flee.

Director Roya Akbari’s short documentary presents a behind-the-scenes look at the making of From Tehran to London (2012) while placing it within the larger context of Mania Akbari’s provocative career exploring themes of sexual and gender identity and women’s rights through film, video installations and painting.

Screenwriter: Roya Akbari.

Blu-ray, color, in Persian with English subtitles, 25 min.

One. Two. One. (Iran, 2011)

Directed by Mania Akbari.

Director Mania Akbari’s third feature, following her intensely personal document 10+4, about her battle with breast cancer, One. Two. One. deploys a visually striking, narratively fragmented strategy to trace a woman’s journey of renewal after a devastating incident leaves her face permanently scarred. Episodic and largely constructed as series of tight close-ups, the incident is described and her recovery portrayed from a series of vantage points that reveal the intractable forces of jealousy, love, honor and violence that shape both.